How Do You Deal with a Bully

Posted Fri, 2 Aug 2013, 11:30pm by Shawn Sheridan

When I was in grade two, life was not good. I was small. I wore coke-bottle-bottom glasses. My mother insisted in dressing me in clothes that were completely different from the rest of the kids, and I had a brush-cut when every other kid had long hair. I was painfully different. And some other kids knew that. And they preyed on that.

I was beat up, tormented, called names. I was called a "fag" even before I knew what that was. It was hell. There was one boy in particular that was my chief tormentor. His name was Tom. He made my life hell for a long time, following me home, beating me up, and making me feel horrible. He had his gang. A bunch of other boys who reckoned it was OK to beat on a weaker kid because that kid was what they thought was inferior. And then there were the silent onlookers... those kinds who "didn't want to get involved", because they were afraid of being Tom's next target. Tom had his problems, sure, but he used fear and intimidation, and leveraged his size and the clout that came with it to create a toxic environment that allowed him to perpetrate his acts. And no one was willing to really challenge him.

Finally, after hoping that it would just go away, which it never did, I got fed up. Perhaps there was some courage in there, but what I remember most is the feeling that, "that's it! No more!" And so one afternoon on the way home, when Tom came at me again with his buddies, I let go and wailed on him!

I was smaller. If you took a look at the two of us, you'd have ten-to-one odds on Tom. And I beat the carp out of him. Enough was enough. I had to take a stand. What he was doing was so wrong, threatening my existence, for no reason other than he didn't like the way I looked, and it had to stop.

Tom never came after me again. He and his friends avoided me like the plague! One small moment of chutzpah, and I had changed my world, and, I realised, the worlds of some other kids as well. And it wasn't that I was a hero or anything... I had just had enough.

There's a new bully in town. This one's a lot bigger than Tom. Ironically, I recognise the behaviour. And it's not just the bully's behaviour I recognise, but everyone around the bully too. What's interesting about this bully is that its behaviour may have gone relatively unnoticed if it hadn't been for the 2014 Winter Olympic / Paralympic Games.

It's kind of like Tom was hosting a party, to which everyone was invited except the kids he beat up. It's not Tom's party this time, of course. It's another very popular kid's party. And that other kid kind of already said they'd have the party at Tom's place, and then found out Tom was a worse bully than they had thought Tom was. The other kid has said, "well, Tom has assured me that he won't beat up anyone." And then Tom said, "like hell I won't!" And the other kid is looking at the floor. And all the other kids know there's something terribly wrong about it.

Now, if you were one of the kids invited to the party, what would you do?

In case you weren't aware of what was going on, here are some links for you:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/more-sports/russian-sports-ministe...

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/russian-lawmaker-we-will-arrest-gay-a...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-27/gay-speed-skater-discusses-russias...

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/ID/2398355657/

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20130729/russia-anti-gay-laws...